Self-Portrait Exhibit on View in Bacon Student Gallery

Last week, galleries around the globe celebrated Museum Selfie Day—a virtual event merging art and social media. To kick off the spring semester, the Visual Arts Board (VAB) has organized an exhibit that takes the selfie back to its roots.

Artists’ Self Portraits from the Gerald Mead Collection is on view through Friday, February 6, in the Dr. Margaret Eschner Bacon Student Gallery in Upton Hall. The exhibit includes 15 pieces in various media and stylistic approaches. Works selected for the exhibit come from the collection of Gerald Mead, an alumnus and lecturer in the Design Department.

While many of the visuals appear as traditional self-portrait studies, some take a wider view of the classic art form. Two of the works included in the exhibit focus not on the artists' faces, but rather their minds—literally. Caesandra Seawell’s digital print Self-Portrait of the Artist pictures a model of the human brain set behind a pair of red-framed eyeglasses. Pat Kewley’s ink and watercolor piece, A Healthy Brain/My Brain, presents a humorous diagram of the artist’s cortexes compared to those of a "normal" mind.

"Since all the works either depict or refer to the artist who created them, they can be described broadly as 'self-portraits,'" said Mead. "The artists' rationale for creating self-referential work varies widely. In some cases, the artists have used their own image as the subject of their work throughout their entire career. Others have used themselves as models to address topics such as body image, identity, alienation, and place."

The artists included in the exhibition are Candace Camuglia, Caitlin Cass, Matt Grote, Robert Harris, Andrew Hershey, Robert Jones, Kewley, Kate Parzych, Anthony Pismarov, Seawell, and Tom Van Dusen; Buffalo State alumni Derek Gabryszak and Aaron Ingrao; and former adjunct faculty members Anders Fernbach and Jason Seeley.

Pictured: Untitled (Self-Portrait), digital print, by Aaron Ingrao